Saturday, 18 April 2015

Wildfires in Southern #Siberia

Farmers in the steppe
of southern Siberia have an old tradition of burning dried grass in the
spring to fertilize the soil for the coming year. In April 2015,
unusually warm temperatures and strong winds turned the tradition into a
nightmare. Several fires escaped the control of their handlers and
spread rapidly across the dry landscape. According to media reports,
escaped fires had devastated several villages, caused the deaths of
about two dozen people, and left thousands of people homeless. Several
smoky fires burned in Zabaikalsky Territory on April 14, 2015, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image. The fires are outlined in red. Several dark burn scars are visible through the smoke.